Opinion is split on Crocs. Some, notably local chef Mario Batali, who favors orange Crocs, consider them the ultimate in footwear comfort, while others loathe them as a fashion faux pas. But one has to give the company credit for its work on 143 Spring St. — at least on the Soho building’s south brick facade. That wall’s historically sensitive restoration includes 50 percent of the existing, old bricks mixed with 50 percent new bricks. The old bricks themselves had been recycled through several previous reconstructions of the building between the Civil War and mid-20th century. (All this information — minus the Batali bit — is on a plaque on the facade.) Crocs also has one-upped N.Y.U. School of Law, which had said it would use the “Poe House”’s original bricks when it reconstructed the W. Third St. building’s facade, but ended up using none.
